Despite ongoing problems with the conveyancing process, research from TwentyEA shows that the time required to get from instruction to sale agreed halved during the pandemic months.

The average time to sell has gone from 75 days in 2019 to 47 days today, while 50% of all properties sell within 16 days.

Again, without exception, all main regions of the UK realised improvements in the time to sell throughout this period, but some of them were a lot lower than the 37% average and some higher.

The most improved area is the North East, as this is the only region of the UK where the average time to sell a property has more than halved since 2019 – moving from 98 days in 2019 to 47 days today. Wales is also very strong with a 45% improvement in time to sell.

Inner London is the least improved region, where it currently takes 80 days on average to sell a property. This is the slowest region of the UK to sell a property, followed by Northern Ireland at 67 days.

Pandemic

Again, above anywhere else, time to sell has fallen fastest in Shetland, where the average property now sells in just 23 days, whereas in 2019, it took 186 days to sell the average property.

Scotland features heavily in the time to sell improvement top 10, where five in the top 10 are in this country. The North East is also well represented, boasting three areas in the top 10.

Katy Billany (pictured), Executive Director of TwentyEA says: “Our analysis shows, based on real-time, whole of market data, that over the last few years, while prices have nearly doubled, the time to sell properties has halved.

“This is perhaps not surprising given the buoyant market we’ve seen over the last two years but looking at the detail at a regional and local level is particularly interesting.”